


I'm trying to say good-bye (you just keep hanging on)

by olivemartini



Series: All The Lovely Ones Have Scars [35]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Pepper, Hurt Tony, Insecure Tony, Iron Man 2, Pepperony - Freeform, Tony thinks he's dying, prerelationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-02 20:00:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16311770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: All the things that Tony wanted to say but didn't.(Iron Man 2 era)





	I'm trying to say good-bye (you just keep hanging on)

**Author's Note:**

> bet you guys thought I'd forgotten all about you, huh?

They are only a foot away from each other when she asks it.

"Why Italy?"  She's sitting curled up in the corner of the couch and Tony is sitting closer to her than he normally would have dared to, so close that her feet are pressed up against his thigh to help her keep warm.  These moments are the worst kind of moments because Tony know that he is not allowed to have them, and also because he knows that this is all she is willing to give him.  He'd tried to push things further before and the moment had evaporated, gone right up into smoke like it didn't happen, and come the next day it's like they'd lost ground instead of gaining it.  So he stays right here on the couch, pretending he doesn't want to wrap his hand around the back of her ankle or reach out to brush fingers just for an excuse to touch her, pretending that there is nothing more he could want than this.  "Of all the place that you could have run away to, why pick there?"

She's talking about the airplane ride and the omelet.  About his feeble attempt to tell her the truth and how Pepper had unknowingly shoved it all even further beneath the surface.  About how he begged her to leave, because maybe it would be nice, because maybe he would have been able to admit it to her then.  Because maybe if he had a week, a whole week of just her and moments like this, a week of sitting on a couch together with her cold feet pressing into the side of his leg, he could have died happy.  

But she had said no.

"Because it was nice," He says, like a coward, like he doesn't know the real question she was asking.  Pepper had said it like she knew the answer and was just trying to see if he would be brave enough to tell the truth, and here he was, failing her, just like always.  "I had fun the last time."

"The last time" was a dangerous thing to bring up in itself.  The last time was the last moment that he can remember his life being simple, when he was CEO and she was his assistant, when he could trust people just a bit more than he can now, when he does not wake up screaming from watered down nightmares about his time in the cave.  When they took that trip to Venice, things were both simpler and harder, but he remembers the two of them being happy.

"That's not why."  She shifts to kneel beside him, which means that she moves her feet away and no part of her is touching any part of him, and just that absence wants to make him break down and tell the truth, just for the chance of making her stay.  "Tell me the truth, Tony."

 _That is the truth.  Because it was nice, and because I think it'll be a good place to make my last memories of you, a good place to let you remember me the way I want you to remember me._ _Because it's a good place to die.  Because I can remember how much you loved it, I remember everything about you, Pepper, even when I don't do a good job of showing it, and I want to give you this, this one last thing before I break your heart.  Because we threw those coins in the Trevi fountain and made wishes, and I wished for you, Pepper, nothing else._

He intends to say it.  Wants to say it, all of it or even a small part of it.  Whatever he says, he just wants it to be the truth, for once in his life.

"I was happy there."  Close enough, but not good enough.  He can see her pulling away, watches the expression on her face shutter closed. "Isn't that reason enough?"

It's not.

"You can be happy here, Tony,"  She says, and he can feel her pull away before she actually does it, gathering up her folders and pens and clipboards and standing up from the couch, moving away from him and towards something more important.  And he hurts for her, because sometime soon she would be looking back on all these moments and only thinking of the times that she was the one to walk away.  He makes a mental note to start being the one to end things, because he does not want her to have memories like that.  He's not entirely sure he wants her to think of him at all.  "You just have to try."

 

 

 

He keeps trying to say good bye to people, but they're never listening.

Happy wants to know what's in the smoothies and protein shakes he keeps drinking.  Wants to know if its some sort of drug, or if it was alcohol.  Uses the term  _fallen off the wagon_ while he eyes Tony in the rearview mirror, and Tony can't even think of an answer, both because he was so caught off guard and also because he'd never heard that expression used in a real life conversation.   _It's medicine,_ Tony thinks of saying, wants to explain the problem in scientific jargon even though Happy won't understand, because maybe it'd be easier for him to hear that his beloved boss is dying when he doesn't understand the details.   _And it's none of your business, damn it, I'm your boss, haven't you ever learned to show me some respect even after everything I've been through, that we've been through,_ but he doesn't end up saying anything at all, because he can't tell the truth and he never has pulled rank on any of them, not Happy or Pepper or Rhodey or even Stane, even when he should have.

Rhodey, too. 

They see but don't understand, but Tony always thought that out of all of them, Rhodey was the one that was always going to be able to protect him.  Always going to be the one to care for him.  He's not sure why, because they are both grown men.  It goes back to their MIT days, where Rhodey was always the one stealing Tony's ID to go buy him a sandwich or hauling him out of parties before he drinks too much and pukes on a pretty sorority girl, and somewhere along the line he turned that into a home, somewhere that he could always go for shelter.

But he was wrong.

"Are you alright?"  He's not alright.  Obviously not alright.  He's pale and sweating and can't stand up on his own, and honestly doesn't think he'd looked this bad since the cave.  Maybe not even then.  "What's wrong, Tony?"

 _Do you even care?_ He thinks about saying it but it would only start a fight.  Would only hurt him.  It's not desperate enough for that yet.   _I'm dying.  I'm dying, Rhodey, staring over the edge and none of you have even noticed.  How have none of you noticed?"_

He helps him up, but this is a new thought, one that he knew but hadn't examined closely, because before he wasn't looking for something to blame.  But now he is.   _You all claim to care about me.  All say that you love me.  But if that's true how can't you see how much pain I'm in?_

It's the first time Tony thinks of telling them all to go away, but he knows he would regret it in the morning, so he doesn't say it.

And anyways, he needs someone to help him walk over to his desk, and Rhodey won't do that if they're fighting.

 

 

"Tony."  Pepper shakes him, tries to wake him up, and even though they had been through this all before, there is half a moment where he does not know where he is and the only thing he can see is the image of her face floating in his line of vision, and it does not give him the sense of calm he is expecting.  There is only panic, and fear, and feeling himself being caught between fight and flight, making him both scramble backwards and lash out at the same time.  

His fist only misses her by inches.

"Pepper."  He had told her not to do this.  Said that he doesn't always know where he is, says that he cannot register the fact that he wakes up fast enough to calm down.  He's always worried that he might hurt her, but Pepper said that she doesn't care, that she knows what she's getting into, that she can take it.  "Don't."

She doesn't listen.  She never listens, just sits on the floor while leaning against the couch cushions, so she can hear every second of his ragged breathing, can feel through the shifting of the cushions when he has calmed down and uncurled from his spot in the corner.  By the time he is ready to talk, he is bent over with his head in his hands, and she tracing words along the lines of the veins in his arms.

"Are you alright?"  It's dark enough that they cannot see each other's faces, but she knows from the fact that Jarvis has not warned her away that Tony is alright.  That he's alright enough for her to get on the couch beside him and pull his hand away from his face, cradle it in her lap.  "Bad dreams?"

It's always bad dreams.  Always nightmares, and panic attacks, and PTSD, and memories that he cannot block out.  He is only gathering more and more of them as days go on- the cave, Stane, Pepper dying, his own endless pain, and now the man who appeared out of thin air with arms or electricity and a heart full of revenge.  

"What was it about?"  Her grip on his hand was tight.  He thinks he had told her, once, that he likes that better than light touches.  That it made him feel more grounded, more real, more whole.  "Tony."  She gives him a few more seconds and then tugs lightly on his arm.  He's never quite sure that this is the best way to handle these kinds of moments, but it's what she does, and Pepper is the only one that he would let get near him in times like this.  "What was it this time?"

He thinks she's keeping score.  How many, what about, how long he was upset, whether or not he could go back to sleep.  She liked her graphs and statistics and lists, things she could make sense of, items on a list that she could check off.  She's been working to make him better for a long time.

Tony's just waiting for the day where she erases that particular part of the list, decides it's too much effort for too little return.  

 _Not the cave,_ he wants to say.   _It's not the cave, it's my father, always my father now.  Sometimes he talks and sometimes he doesn't, sometimes he's young or old or caught somewhere between.  He's always angry, and I always know that he's just about to die.  He never says that he loves me, either, but he never did that while he was alive, so why should he do it in a dream?_

 _I think I'm like him,_ he would add, if anyone had ever bothered to ask.   _I think I'm like him and that terrifies me so I tell myself that it's not true, but if it wasn't true, why else haven't I told you that I love you yet?  I'm sitting here and I'm screaming in my sleep and I just want to say I love you, but maybe that's not true either, because I still love myself more._

_Otherwise I would have walked away from you by now.  The only thing I'm good for now is making people hurt._

He thinks all of it.  Has the answers right there at the tip of his tongue.  It might be easier for him to do it now, so he can't see the look on her face when the words sink in.  He doesn't want to watch himself hurt her one more time.

"Tony?"  She's still waiting for an answer and that worries her, which is probably a mark of how much help he needs, when silence is more troubling than screams.  "Are you alright?"

"Yeah."  He's not.  "It was nothing."  This is everything.  These are the last moments he's ever going to get to have, and even though he's trying to make it matter, everything he says are lies.  "Just the cave."

 

 

 

 

There are more moments like that as time goes on.

Moments where she brings him a cup of coffee that he dumps down the sink as soon her back is turned and he pauses right in the middle of grabbing it from her, stops the moment right when part of his hand is covering part of hers.  He drags it out long enough that she gives a half smile and a laugh, and she always asks him what's wrong, if she's got something on her face, and all Tony can think of saying is  _nothing, you're perfect, I love you, I love you Pepper Potts, are you sure we can't run away together_ , but he doesn't actually say anything at all.

Moments where he lets the pain show on his face, where the whimper or whine or moan crawls up his throat and punches its way past his teeth, where she stops and turns to him, lays one hand on her arm and gives him her undivided attention for half a second, asks him what's wrong, asks him where it hurts, if he had gotten injured in his last fight, and Tony almost finds him telling her the truth.

Moments where he almost tells her.

Moments where he says good-bye and she hears, but does not understand.

They just make the end seem more real.

 

 

 

"What's your biggest regret?"  

She's happy.  And tipsy.  And in his arms, because she turned the speakers on and demanded that he dance, so now they're slow dancing on the tile floor of his kitchen, her still in her evening clothes and him in his plaid pajama pants and wash worn t-shirt, revolving on the spot right under the sky light.  They're so close together that she doesn't even have to raise her voice to talk, just whispers it, and for the first time he doesn't think that he's going to lie to her.

 _That I didn't kiss you that night on the balcony.  That I didn't hug my mother good bye that day, that I never told my father that I loved him.  That I never really even tried to love him, but I suppose I must have, right, don't all sons love their fathers even when they're terrible?  That I ever trusted Stane, or took over this business._   _That I've never once told Rhodey thank you.  That I loved you, and that I let you love me back.  At least I think you love me back, even if you'd never say it.  I hope you love me._

"I don't have a biggest regret."  She pulls back to see his face and sobers up a little, maybe because he looks too serious for the kind of night they had been having.  "I've got a lot of little ones."

"Like what?" 

_Letting you take this job.  Not dying in that cave.  Yinsen.  Turning Iron Man into something real, that endless string of women I paraded in front of you like it was something to be proud of, how even with everything I've done, it doesn't feel like it's enough._

"Nothing in particular."  He spins her around, his socks siding a bit with the carpet and her heels clicking on the tile.  He liked that sound, partly just because he liked the click but mostly because he knew that Pepper was walking towards him.  "I just don't really think that I was meant for a life like this."

"What kind of life, then?"  They're not even moving anymore, she's just pressed up against him, her head on his chest and his arms around her, sort of cradling her in yellow light.  He makes a mental note to ask Jarvis the name of the song when he's alone.  "Am I in it?"

This would be a good time for a confession, too.  He'll have to leave some sort of recording, or a letter, something to give them all these words he was so afraid of.  

"Always.  You're always in it.  And it would be a lot of the same."  He thought about it once- he'd be a mechanic in some town no one's ever heard of, and he'd go home to Pepper and their cat, and maybe he'd have a model car in the garage that he fixes up and takes to car shows once a month. And there'd be a kid, eventually, but once it gets to that point of the dream he always gives it up.  "Just smaller."

"That's not right."  She smiles at him and its dazzling.  "You were meant for something great, Tony.  Something glorious."

 _I'd have to live for that to be true,_ he thinks, and doesn't bother wondering if who he is now could ever be enough.

He's pretty sure the answer is no.

 

 

The next time they talk about regrets, they aren't being so nice to each other.

He's still in the suit.   Rhodey's gone.  So are the guests.  All of them were too afraid to come back inside when they started fighting, but not Pepper.

Never Pepper.

She'd never learned how to be afraid of him, only for him.  And the most common reaction to stunts like that from her is anger.

"What the hell, Tony?"  She's kicing through the glass, and even though she's in heels, there is no clicking, there is only the crunch of glass under her feet.  He wants to tell her to stop, that she might hurt herself and he'll walk over to her, but he knows it won't be a helpful comment, both because he wasn't that concerned about her wellbeing before and also because he can't even drag himself to his feet.  

"Pepper."  There is nothing more for him to say.  That was the whole point of this, that he would never have to say anything to them.  That the end wouldn't hurt any of them.  "I'm sorry."

"Sorry doesn't cut it."  She's so angry.  And so beautiful.  And he's so in love with her.  "What was that?"  He opens his mouth and no words come out.  "Just give me one reason.  One, however pathetic."  Pepper crosses her arms and stares down at him, and Tony has never felt smaller in his life than he did in that moment.  "The truth this time, Tony."

It's the one thing in the world that he refuses to give her.

"What's wrong with you?  Really."  There are tears in her eyes, and in spite of it all, Tony feels a vicious stab of relief that someone had actually paid enough attention to him to notice. Its a feeling similar to the pain you get when you won't stop picking at a scab, the compulsive kind you love and hate at the same time.  "I know there's something.  There has been for a long time.  Just tell me."  She kneels down on the floor in the middle of all the glass, and Tony closes his eyes to stop himself from seeing it, because they have replayed this scene over and over so many times, and he is just so tired of watching the same endings.  But this is the last time.  He doesn't have to be tired for much longer.  "I can fix it."

 _I'm just in so much pain._ He thinks of saying it.  If he was going to tell her anything, it would be that, because it wouldn't even raise too many questions, with all the trauma his body had been through.  He could tell her, about how he drinks just so he doesn't have to feel it and every step is a new sort of agony and he just wants to make it stop, whatever it takes.  He could almost see her reaction, how he could fall into her and she could hold him the way she always does when he is hurting, and come the morning, this would all be better, more clear, easier to take.   _Constantly, everywhere.  Every inch of me aches, right down to my teeth, and my pulse is always so loud that I can hear it even when it isn't quiet, and that can't be a good sign, can it Pepper?_

_This isn't personal.  This is just what I have to do.  It's just how I keep myself standing.  And it worked for a while, but I think this is it.  I think I've done all that I can._

It would make this reasonable.  It would make it be forgiven.  And it would make her stay, which, however horrible it may look from the outside, is not something he wants.  The only thing that her staying can do is hurt, for both of them.  So he stays quiet, and tells himself that its easier that way.

It might not even be a lie.  Tony's lost track of what's true.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


End file.
